Losing talent by partnering up? The impact of R&D collaboration on employee mobility

Markus Simeth and Ali Mohammadi

Research Policy, 2022, vol. 51, issue 7

Abstract: Firms frequently enter collaborations with other organizations for the purpose of innovating. In this paper, we argue that engaging in R&D collaboration can have the unintended consequence of increasing the mobility of highly skilled personnel. We investigate our research question using a representative dataset that combines information from the Swedish Community Innovation Survey (CIS) with employer–employee registry data. Our econometric analysis shows that R&D collaborations by firms are associated with higher levels of outgoing mobility among skilled employees, particularly among those with technical (“STEM”) education and master's or doctoral degrees. We also find support for the interpretation that R&D collaboration augments employees’ general human capital, subsequently increasing their outside employment options. We discuss important implications for firm collaboration strategies.

Keywords: R&D collaboration; Strategic alliances; Knowledge workers; R&D employees; Employee mobility; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733322000762
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:51:y:2022:i:7:s0048733322000762

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2022.104551

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().